@RuthMalan an important paper; thanks for posting
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anderbill (band@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 27-Jul-2026 21:31:55 JST
anderbill
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Ruth — of systems & design (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jul-2026 21:31:56 JST
Ruth — of systems & design
Of course, even “the matter of the matter” unfolds in multiple directions: how and why does it matter? what matter is it made of? (And yes, conceptual matter matters too.)
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Ruth — of systems & design (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jul-2026 21:31:56 JST
Ruth — of systems & design
We have Naur:
“The programmer having the theory of the program can explain why each part of the program is what it is, in other words is able to support the actual program text with a justification of some sort.”and Brandolini:
"It's developer's (mis)understanding, not expert knowledge that gets released in production"and his Law.
And we have: “theories of why the system matters and what matters (to users) and how”
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Ruth — of systems & design (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jul-2026 21:31:56 JST
Ruth — of systems & design
Which invites us to make connections to Margaret-Anne Storey’s “Triple Debt Model”
https://spawn-queue.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3807966
:)
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Ruth — of systems & design (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jul-2026 21:31:57 JST
Ruth — of systems & design
A great summer/winter read? In good part because it pulls on various threads, that open up various rabbit holes to explore, in that Alice sense??
Oh alright, here you go: https://www.ruthmalan.com/systems/2025SystemDesignOverview.pdf
Hehe. but seriously, it’s regrounding to remind ourselves that we’re developing and evolving these theories:
theory of (our role in) the ecosystem(s) we impact/are impacted by
theory of value (“the problem”)
theory of “the solution”
and how these interact.
(p146)It’s about the matter of the matter.
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